> >From the Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 1, 1994. 
> >Reprinted without permission
> 
> >BEFUDDLED PC USERS FLOOD HELP LINES, AND NO QUESTION SEEMS TO BE TOO BASIC
> 
> >AUSTIN, Texas -  The exasperated help-line caller said she couldn't get 
> >her new Dell computer to turn on.  Jay Ablinger, a Dell Computer Corp. 
> >technician, made sure the computer was plugged in and then asked the 
> >woman what happened when she pushed the power button.
> 
> >"I've pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens," the 
> >woman replied.  "Foot pedal?" the technician asked.  "Yes," the woman 
> >said, "this little white foot pedal with the on switch."  The "foot 
> >pedal," it turned out, was the computer's mouse, a hand-operated device 
> >that helps to control the computer's operations.
> 
> >Personal-computer makers are discovering that it's still a low-tech 
> >world out there.  While they are finally having great success selling 
> >PCs to households, they now have to deal with people to whom monitors 
> >and disk drives are a foreign as another language.
> 
> >"It is rather mystifying to get this nice, beautiful machine and not 
> >know anything about it," says Ed Shuler, a technician who helps field 
> >consumer calls at Dell's headquarters here.  "It's going into unfamiliar 
> >territory," adds Gus Kolias, vice president of customer service and
> >training for Compaq Computer Corp.  "People are looking for a comfort level."
> 
> >Only two years ago, most calls to PC help lines came from techies 
> >needing help on complex problems.  But now, with computer sales to homes 
> >exploding as new "multimedia" functions gain mass appeal, PC makers say 
> >that as many as 70% of their calls come from rank novices.  Partly 
> >because of the volume of calls, some computer companies have started 
> >charging help-line users.
> 
> >The questions are often so basic that they could have been answered by 
> >opening the manual that comes with every machine.  One woman called Dell's 
> >toll-free line to ask how to install batteries in her laptop.  When
> >told that the directions were on the first page of the manual, says Steve 
> >Smith, Dell director of technical support, the woman replied angrily,
> >"I just paid $2,000 for this damn thing, and I'm not going to read a book."
> 
> >Indeed, it seems that these buyers rarely refer to a manual when a phone 
> >is at hand.  "If there is a book and a phone and they're side by side, 
> >the phone wins time after time," says Craig McQuilkin, manager of 
> >service marketing for AST Research, Inc. in Irvine, Calif.  "It's a 
> >phenomenon of people wanting to talk to people."
> 
> >And do they ever.  Compaq's help center in Houston, Texas, is inundated 
> >by some 8,000 consumer calls a day, with inquiries like this one related 
> >by technician John Wolf: "A frustrated customer called, who said her 
> >brand new Contura would not work.  She said she had unpacked the unit, 
> >plugged it in, opened it up and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for 
> >something to happen.  When asked what happened when she pressed the 
> >power switch, she asked, 'What power switch?'"
> 
> >Seemingly simple computer features baffle some users.  So many people have 
> >called to ask where the "any" key is when "Press Any Key" flashes on the 
> >screen that Compaq is considering changing the command to "Press Return Key."
> 
> >Some people can't figure out the mouse.  Tamra Eagle, an AST technical 
> >support supervisor, says one customer complained that her mouse was hard 
> >to control with the "dust cover" on.  The cover turned out to be the 
> >plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.  Dell technician Wayne Zieschang 
> >says one of his customers held the mouse and pointed it at the screen, 
> >all the while clicking madly.  The customer got no response because the 
> >mouse works only if it's moved over a flat surface.
> 
> >Disk drives are another bugaboo.  Compaq technician Brent Sullivan says 
> >a customer was having trouble reading word-processing files from his 
> >old diskettes.  After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to 
> >diagnose the problem, Mr. Sullivan asked what else was being done with 
> >the diskette.  The customer's response: "I put a label on the diskette, 
> >roll it into the typewriter..."
> 
> >At AST, another customer dutifully complied with a technician's request that 
> >she send in a copy of a defective floppy disk.  A letter from the customer 
> >arrived a few days later, along with a Xerox copy of the floppy. And at 
> >Dell, a technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in 
> >the drive and "close the door." Asking the technician to "hold on," the 
> >customer put the phone down and was heard walking over to shut the
> >door to his room.  The technician meant the door to his floppy drive.
> 
> >The software inside the computer can be equally befuddling.  A Dell 
> >customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. 
> >After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man 
> >was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor 
> >screen and hitting the "send" key.
> 
> >Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so Dell 
> >technician Gary Rock referred him to the local Egghead.  "Yeah, I got me 
> >a couple of friends," the customer replied.  When told Egghead was a 
> >software store, the man said, "Oh! I thought you meant for me to find a 
> >couple of geeks."
> 
> >Not realizing how fragile computers can be, some people end up damaging 
> >parts beyond repair.  A Dell customer called to complain that his 
> >keyboard no longer worked.  He had cleaned it, he said, filling up his 
> >tub with soap and water and soaking his keyboard for a day, and then 
> >removing all the keys and washing them individually.
> 
> >Computers make some people paranoid.  A Dell technician, Morgan Vergara, 
> >says he once calmed a man who became enraged because "his computer had 
> >told him he was bad and an invalid."  Mr. Vergara patiently explained 
> >that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be 
> >taken personally.
> 
> >These days PC-help technicians increasingly find themselves taking on 
> >the role of amateur psychologists.  Mr. Shuler, the Dell technician, who 
> >once worked as a psychiatric nurse, says he defused a potential domestic 
> >fight by soothingly talking a man through a computer problem after the 
> >man had screamed threats at his wife and children in the background.
> 
> >There are also the lonely hearts who seek out human contact, even if it 
> >happens to be a computer techie.  One man from New Hampshire calls Dell 
> >every time he experiences a life crisis.  He gets a technician to walk 
> >him through some contrived problem with his computer, apparently feeling 
> >uplifted by the process.
> 
> >"A lot of people want reassurance," says Mr. Shuler.